Magnetic sensors are often integrated within the platforms of computing devices and are used as compasses to measure or detect heading information, e.g., information relating to the direction the computing device is pointing. Such heading information may be used for navigation applications, perceptual computing applications, gaming applications, or the like. However, interference induced by the platforms of the computing devices may impede the proper functioning of the magnetic sensors, resulting in inaccurate heading measurements. Specifically, the magnetic field induced by the platform of a computing device at the input of a magnetic sensor may shift based on the system states of various components of the computing device and the proximity of the components to the magnetic sensor.
According to current techniques, such platform induced shifts in the magnetic field are accounted for by calculating, monitoring, and tracking the centroid of the magnetic sensor output within the plane of rotation. However, such techniques do not appropriately account for shifts in the magnetic field caused by changes in the system states of the components of the computing device. For example, such techniques do not account for shifts in the magnetic field seen at the sensor that are caused by changes in the power state of the computing device that may occur when the battery of the computing device is being charged or the overall power consumption of the computing device changes.
Currently, shifts in the magnetic field resulting from changes in the system states of components are handled in the same manner as shifts in the magnetic field resulting from changes in the external environment. According to such techniques, multiple sensor readings are used to detect a change in the external environment, and an algorithm is then used to calculate the shift in the magnetic field caused by the change in the external environment. As a result, the orientation output of the computing device reading the magnetic sensor will be incorrect during the time between the occurrence of the physical shift in the magnetic field and the detection and calculation of the shift in the magnetic field.
The same numbers are used throughout the disclosure and the figures to reference like components and features. Numbers in the 100 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 1; numbers in the 200 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 2; and so on.